Episode Details

Welcome to episode 157 of the Löw Tide Böyz - A Swimrun Podcast!

Happy New Year everyone! In our annual tradition of setting the bar way too high for ourselves, we have a great show lined up to kick off 2023. Joining us this week are the 2022 World Champions and the only Men’s team to go undefeated in every event of the ÖTILLÖ World Series. Of course we are talking about none other than Hugo Tormento and Max Andersson, A.K.A., Team Ark Swimrun Hugo and Max. This was a super fun conversation and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.

But first…

Training Update

We’re still in off-season mode but our race calendar is starting to come together and it looks like our first Swimrun event will be in May at Bend Racing’s new Sunriver Swimrun in Bend, Oregon.

Shoutouts

In our Gear of the Year Awards episode with the Swimrun Labs we put out a call for gear ideas that don’t exist yet and we got some awesome responses. We will save the details for the next edition of Gear Talk but we wanted to shoutout some of the folks that had great/creative/violative of the laws of physics/genius ideas. 

In no particular order: shoutouts to Katie, Pepe, Brendan, Henrik (a.k.a. Swimrun Pappa), Naomi, and Matt.

Feats of Endurance

This week’s Feats of Endurance winner is Vlad Caireac. He posted a workout from his native Moldova. He is our first Strava Club member from this Eastern European country and we’re here for it! Thanks for joining the club.

Make sure to sign up for our LTBz Strava Club (which just passed 500 members!!!) and join Swimrunners from around the world as they train for stuff.

This Week in Swimrun

We are going to get back into the swing of things for this segment but wanted to share a quick update on our plans for the show in 2023. 

Last year we focused a lot on our own Swimrun journey to ÖTILLÖ, The Swimrun World Championship with our Countdown to ÖTILLÖ series and while we are planning on heading back to Sweden this year for another bite at that apple (if we re-qualify), we aren't planning on emphasizing our personal journey as much. Rather, we are re-focusing on helping grow the sport and showcase why we think that the sport is so great and why everyone with any propensity for swimming and running should try it. In that vein, we will be producing more "course preview" episodes for races on our bucket list, since living vicariously is the best we can hope for given our family and work responsibilities. We will also be producing more content specifically for beginners that we will be featuring in our IG and YouTube feeds.

Now for the “news.”

In the bummer department, Ödyssey Swimrun recently announced that their Coastal Dunes race which was scheduled for early March was forced to be canceled due to permitting issues. All registered participants have been notified.

In other (non-bummer) Ödyssey news, they have opened registration for all their 2023 events which include Casco Bay, Mackinac Island, Orcas Island, and Austin. If that wasn’t enough for you, registration for all their events is 30% off through the month of January! 

Time for a short PSA: As someone who’s worked in the endurance space for almost a decade I can tell you that putting on races, and especially Swimrun events, is a painstaking and expensive process with very little guarantee of